Would you buy hand embroidered bags?

[Reptaaa]

I've been trying to think of a business venture for a few years now and think I have come up with something that may prove popular.

I love doing embroidery and am quite good at tambour bead embroidery. I want to buy bulk cotton or jute bags and do simple designs on them and maybe do some personalised initials or names on them and sell them.

Is this is a good idea? Would you buy a simple bag with a bit of hand embroidery on it, maybe for a school p.e bag or a lunch box bag? Or everyday cotton type bag?

Honestly no. I find that most hand made bags are too expensive to consider...embroidered bags can be bought quite cheaply on the high street...there are always a few willing buyers for this type of thing but it's not really a valid business idea on it's own.

If you were to go high end and make stunning hand bags which were very, very well executed and original then maybe...but that's more designer territory rather than crafty and your bags will need to stand out a lot.

Tambour bead embroidery is quite time consuming so you will need to charge a lot for each piece...and you won't be able to make many at a time.

It would all depend on your designs and prices and whether you could charge enough to make it pay.

Why not find out if there is a good Christmas craft fair near to you ( start compiling a list of how many you can find) and book a table. It will give you a deadline and you will be able to guage the level of interest.

I think you would need to do a lot of detail to make it worthwhile buying and lots of detail = lots of time.

You might be better experimenting with applique with fabric scraps (floral/felt) and then doing simple embroidery on top. It would have more impact but take less time. You can get applique spray to hold fabric in position (don't bother with the applique paper - too time consuming. Have a look at Poppy Tefrey's Free & Easy stitch style (check out book on Amazon) that sort of thing can be very effective and go down well at craft fairs. You could then embellish with beading.

A lot depends on how it's done. There is a trend at the moment for shabby chic, not so much hippy, or heavy beading, and ethnic is best left authentic.

If I'm honest, no. I'd worry that the beading would come off on a cotton everday kind of bag / kids bag. I have bought printed cotton bags / stockings from not on the high street

PS Look at notonthehighstreet.com for personalised, embroidered items as an example of what is in trend at the moment.

I think there are so many companies doing personalised embroidery you would struggle - even if your beading is incredibly much more lovely than a machine embroidered thing.

A Christmas craft fair will give you an idea of how much you could sell at Christmas - in my experience we take about treble what we do normally and 12 times more than we do in August. Obviously this would depend on your product eg an icecream salesman would do much better in summer but you do need to allow for seasonal fluctuations when you make your business plan.

You are making a business plan, right? Cause you need to really think hard about how much you would need to sell to make any money. If you need a 10k salary out of it, you would need to say sell 10 units a week at £10 per unit. But then you also need to cover raw materials, taxes, pitch fees, marketing, website hosting and lots and lots of other stuff. So could you find 20 people a week? And what about child care?

Sorry if I'm being a downer but having a bad week in my business and wish someone had said all this to me!

How about something like doing the embroidery on wedding and bridesmaid dresses? I know two dress makers and they always want extra help with the dresses and that's the most time consuming bit.

I would think that aiming to make anything low cost is difficult. If your work is top quality, then aim at the higher end.